To The Power of Three
by Alipeeps
Summary: AU rewrite of the episode Trio, set pre-Sunday and featuring the original Seasons 2-3 core cast. Sheppard and McKay whump.
1. One

_This fic started off with the idea of rewriting the episode Trio to include Sheppard and from their evolved into rewiriting Trio with Sheppard instead of Carter and Carson instead of Keller and eventually ended up being essentially an AU-version of Trio, set pre-Sunday and involving the original (Season 2-3) core cast. All action and dialogue are taken from the episode, except where rewriting was needed to make the context make sense, given the characters involved._

_This fic turned into a mammoth endeavour and is waaaaaay longer than I thought it would be! But it was kinda fun to take an episode and kind of rewrite it. All feedback and concrit gratefully received. :)_

* * *

"Which planet is this, again?" Elizabeth asked.

"M5V-801."

Colonel Sheppard's matter of fact response was immediately followed by Rodney's more strident explanation. "The one with the frequent tremors."

Carson's expression was earnest as he added, "Not to mention an abnormally large number of people with debilitating respiratory problems."

"It's a mining planet," Rodney dismissed. "It's not that surprising."

"Not everybody worked in the mines, Rodney," Carson pointed out.

John intervened before she could, the tone of his voice suggesting that this was not the first such discussion he'd had to break up during their brief trip off-world. "Get to the point, guys."

They reached the control room level and headed towards Elizabeth's office as Rodney explained in more detail, "They're experiencing upwards of four tremors a day. My seismic teams concluded that the area where they built their settlement is dangerously unstable..."

"Not to mention my environmental and air quality tests came out way into the red."

Rodney spared Carson an impatient look. "My analysis was enough, thank you."

"Well, obviously it wasn't enough for them," Carson pointed out. "Anyway, these people said they've experienced tremors for as long as they can remember."

"Yes, and I'm pretty sure they've been breathing even longer so, again, my problem trumps yours," Rodney argued.

"This is not a contest." Elizabeth reminded them. "Obviously they're living in a settlement that's not safe for habitation. You need to convince them to move to another part of the continent."

John shrugged, a measure of frustration in the gesture. "Well, we tried. It's not working."

"Why not?" She sat down at her desk as John slipped into one of the pair of chairs arranged in front of it, hooking an arm lazily over the back in his usual relaxed slouch; Carson and Rodney warred silently for a moment as they both reached for the second chair, resulting in a battle of glares that ended in Carson rolling his eyes and pointedly stepping around Rodney to pull up a third chair. Elizabeth held back a sigh.

"Twenty years ago, the Genii kind of took over the planet and employed 'em all as miners," John explained.

Elizabeth frowned. "Mining what?"

"Haven't a clue," Rodney interrupted, "but whatever it was, they cleaned out the deposits and left."

"So ...?" she prompted.

"So they think we're like the Genii and they want their cut," John grimaced.

"Ah." Elizabeth sat back with a grimace of her own. Nothing was ever simple in the Pegasus galaxy.

"They're willing to move," Carson told her, "but they have a list of demands a mile and a half long."

"And negotiating with alien settlements is not exactly why I joined the Air Force," John pointed out. Elizabeth held back a small smile; given his past record in "negotiating", she should probably be grateful he hadn't promised them C4.

"We were hoping if you had some time, maybe you'd be willing to come..." Carson suggested, his expression hopeful.

Rodney interrupted before she could reply, telling her eagerly, "It'd save us a lot of time in the back and forth." A little too eagerly, she thought.

She turned to her laptop and pulled up her schedule for the next few days. "Ok. I should be able to free up some time tomorrow afternoon."

She looked up to find Rodney looking uncomfortable and John shifting uneasily in his chair. "Uh. We kinda told them we'd be back this afternoon," he admitted apologetically.

She sighed. "John…"

"Seriously, Elizabeth. At least four tremors a day!" Rodney interrupted. "The sooner we convince them to move, the better."

"Fine." She stood up. "Then you'd better go back there this afternoon, as promised, and do your best to convince them. I'll free up my afternoon for tomorrow and join you then."

John's expression was resigned as he stood and she thought she could detect a stifled smile on Carson's face but Rodney, as ever, was not one to give up easily, not moving from his chair as he argued. "Oh, but it would make much more sense for you to go. Are you sure you can't…"

"Tomorrow," she told him firmly, her tone making it clear the matter was closed. Rodney didn't bother to hide his disappointed sigh as he followed John and Carson from the office.

* * *

An hour later, as they trekked all the way back to the settlement, Rodney was still feeling aggrieved at Elizabeth's unreasonable refusal to change her schedule and come and deal with this for them. She was the trained negotiator, for goodness sake. He was no good at this stuff and Sheppard was worse. And, quite frankly, if these people were too stupid to move out of what was clearly a chronically seismically unstable region, then he didn't know what he could possibly say that would convince them to change their minds. When he'd expressed this opinion to Sheppard, he'd received a narrow-eyed look and a pointed suggestion that perhaps calling the villagers "terminally stupid" hadn't been the best method of persuasion.

The walk to the settlement was a good 30-40 minutes across mostly open fields. It was a marginally better prospect than trekking through gloomy woodlands, though Rodney was unhappily convinced that his second exposure in one day to acres of grassland would play havoc with his allergies later. As they trudged through yet another field, Carson was already beginning to huff and wheeze beside him.

"I'm not used to this off-world business," he complained. "All this back and forth is getting me winded. Could we not have taken the Jumper?"

"Oh, suck it up," Rodney told him, feeling less than charitable. "It's not that bad. I have to hike this much almost every day."

Carson gave him a look that was slightly incredulous. "You do?" On Carson's other side Sheppard, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, kept his attention on their route as he gave a small snort.

"Yes!" Rodney insisted indignantly. "I'm a very active person."

Sheppard's head turned at that, his mouth curved in amusement as he asked, "You are?"

"Your last physical would kind of contradict you," murmured Carson quietly.

Rodney bristled at that. "That is private medical information that should not so cavalierly be shared in casual conversation, _Doctor_."

Sheppard's attention was directed ahead of them again but Rodney didn't miss the grin on his face.

"I don't think it comes as a great surprise to the Colonel," Carson smiled.

"That's not the point, you know?" Rodney told him, feeling his irritation build. "I'm no Ronon, " he admitted, loftily ignoring their grins, "I'm not gonna be on the cover of "Shape" magazine any time soon, but I can handle myself in combat; stand my ground when I need to…"

Fate, Rodney would decide later, has a particularly cruel sense of humour, the solid ground beneath his feet choosing that very moment to give way spectacularly. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that he didn't have time to scream, didn't have time to even register the sensation of falling. One minute he was walking and talking and the next thing he knew was sudden, jarring impact that knocked the breath from his body.

For a moment he was numb, too stunned to process what had happened, and then sensation flooded back in and _owwwww_, _that hurt_! He was vaguely aware of Sheppard's voice, echoey and distant, saying "Don't move." Good advice, he thought vaguely, letting out a groan. He blinked dazedly and found himself looking up at a patch of daylight. It looked awfully far away.

Sheppard was telling him to, "Get down on your stomach – spread out your weight," and that was a stupid idea but then two faces appeared over the edge of what he realised was a hole in the ceiling of… of wherever he was… and things began to make more sense.

"Rodney?" Sheppard called down to him. "McKay, are you all right?"

"Ow." Personally, he thought that summed things up pretty well.

"Thank God," Sheppard breathed.

"Don't move, okay?" Carson yelled and Rodney was too shaken and aching to point out the ridiculousness of that advice. Well, almost.

"Not a problem," he assured them blearily, his voice sounding about as rough as he felt.

Sheppard's head was little more than a tuft of unruly hair far, far above. "We're gonna head back to the Gate, try to get some help," the tuft announced.

Apparently working on the assumption that Rodney had given himself permanent brain damage in the fall, Carson decided to reiterate his entirely redundant advice. Rodney glared up at the doctor as he yelled down, "Just try to stay as still..."

With a suddenness that was terrifying, Carson's words cut off, morphing into a wordless yell that mingled with Sheppard's surprised shout and the roar and clatter of soil and debris hitting the ground. The hole above turned dark as the light was blocked out by falling dirt and bodies and Rodney scrunched his eyes shut, cringing away from the expected impact. He was vaguely aware of two dull, painful sounding thuds mixed in with the patter of half a ton or so of soil.

The rain of dirt petered out and for a moment there was a hushed, expectant silence. And then somebody gave a muted groan and Rodney thought, "Yeah, I know how that feels." He opened his eyes to see a much bigger hole up above him. He turned his head, very carefully, to find Sheppard sprawled face down beside him, dirt caked in his hair. On his other side Carson muttered something indistinct that Rodney suspected was probably very rude. Rodney was just grateful for the minor miracle that neither of them had actually landed _on_ him. The air was thick with dust and Rodney coughed a little as Sheppard stirred sluggishly. With sending for help abruptly off the menu, Rodney reluctantly decided he couldn't lie around here and wait for rescue so he flexed a leg experimentally and was relieved to find only general aches and pains and not the stabbing agony he had been half expecting.

"Don't move if you feel any shooting pains," Carson advised breathlessly, struggling to push himself to a sitting position.

"I would never move if that was the case," Rodney assured him, managing to roll over, carefully, and get his arms under him.

Sheppard had made it as far as his knees and was casting a practised eye over each of them in turn. "Well, it doesn't look like any of us are bleeding."

"At least externally," Rodney qualified, feeling justified in a little pessimism.

"Well, that's a godsend," Carson pronounced. Rodney wouldn't say as much but privately he had to agree. That hole was a long way up and it was a wonder none of them had broken or seriously damaged something in the fall.

With a fair amount of groaning, and not just from him, the three of them picked themselves up and made an attempt at dusting themselves down and Rodney got his first proper look at their surroundings. It was a room. A square box of a room, high-ceilinged, with support beams crossing from one wall to the other maybe 10 foot or so up. It was plain, utilitarian and obviously industrial in purpose. The floor, walls and ceiling all seemed to be made of metal and the hole far above showed where the metal of the ceiling had corroded and weakened; a nice little booby trap just waiting for anyone unlucky enough to step in the wrong place.

Pipes ran along some of the walls and stacks of ancient crates, some of them cracked or smashed from the team's ignominious entrance, were piled here and there. Aged bits of tools or machinery littered the floor; everything looked rusted and abandoned. "This whole place is a tetanus shot waiting to happen," Carson commented reprovingly.

Turning around Rodney wasn't entirely surprised to find a familiar symbol adorning the far wall. He huffed out an exasperated sigh.

"In fact, where the hell are we?" asked Carson.

Rodney jerked a disgusted thumb in the direction of the symbol, "I'd guess the Genii mining facility."

"They just don't build 'em like they used to, huh?" Sheppard commented, craning his neck to look up at the hole above.

"I am particularly not fond of the ceiling work," Rodney agreed acidly.

Carson looked around, musing aloud, "If this is part of a larger facility..."

"...then there should be a way for us to walk out of here, right," finished Sheppard. The room had two doors on opposing walls and Sheppard took the nearest, a solid-looking blue door with a control panel set into the wall beside it.

Sheppard set his shoulders and gave the door an experimental push.

The other door was painted red and its opening mechanism appeared to consist of a large airlock type wheel. Rodney took a firm grip on the wheel and was about to try and turn it when Sheppard called over, a little impatiently, "Little help here, McKay?"

Rodney turned to see both Sheppard and Carson pushing at the blue door. Quite frankly, he thought a door with a manual mechanism was likely to be a better bet than one with an electronic one. "What about this one?" he asked.

Sheppard shook his head, saying succinctly, "Red means bad."

Rodney couldn't help an instinctive reaction, snatching his hands from the wheel. "Oh. Yeah," he agreed a thoughtfully, "Can't argue with that logic."

Sheppard and Carson were focusing on trying to force the door open with brute strength. Rodney preferred to use a more cerebral approach; he headed straight for the control panel, leaning in to examine the keypad.

He stepped back with an expression of disgust.

"Well, d'you see this?" he pointed out. "That's not gonna budge unless we enter the right code." He leaned back in for a closer look, aware of Sheppard peering over his shoulder. "Look, these symbols are Genii numerals."

"But you can crack the code, though, right?" Carson asked expectantly.

Rodney sighed. "The problem is that the control panel is electronic…"

"It's not impossible, though, right?" Sheppard pushed.

"No. No, it's just ... highly, highly unlikely," Rodney admitted.

Hands on his hips, Sheppard turned to survey the room, and the limited possibilities it offered. "OK, so..." he decided, indicating the red-painted door, "door number two?"

"After you, Monty," Rodney gestured wearily.

Sheppard moved past him, rubbing absently at his left shoulder, and Rodney found himself wondering just how much damage the Colonel had done in the fall. Sheppard looked the door over carefully and took a firm grip on one side of the wheel, bracing himself solidly. With a small show of reluctance, Rodney did likewise on the other side.

"Okay, on three," Sheppard warned. "One, two, three."

The two of them pushed and strained, gritting their teeth as they put steady pressure on the wheel, but despite all their effort, it didn't budge even an inch. Rodney let the tension go with a gasp, Sheppard following suit.

Rodney sighed. "There goes that plan."

Undeterred, Sheppard looked around the room again, telling them, "Hang on a minute," and bending to pull out a long metal rod from the debris piled on the floor. Realising his intent, Rodney helped him feed the length of metal through the wheel and they both took a grip on the bar, bracing themselves again.

Sheppard nodded. "Okay, three: one, two, three, go."

Rodney pulled with all his might, Sheppard leaning his weight against the rod from the other side and slowly, reluctantly, the wheel turned in place with a clunk. With a huff of relief, Rodney slid the metal pole out of the wheel.

Sheppard was reaching for the wheel when Carson suddenly interrupted, "Wait, whoa-whoa-whoa!" Carson had never been a big fan of going off-world and his discomfort was evident as he asked worriedly, "What if ... what if that door was sealed for a reason?"

Rodney regarded him with a mixture of impatience and derision. "What, you think maybe there's a scary monster back there?" he jibed.

Carson bristled. "No! But this is a mining facility and who knows what kind of toxins are in there! Like you said, red means bad."

Rodney quailed a little at that, his impatience evaporating rapidly. Carson had a point; abandoned mines could mean all sorts of dangers, his imagination rapidly supplying suggestions such as toxins, subsidence, lethal gas build-up, collapsing tunnels…

Sheppard looked at Carson and at Rodney and then around the small box-like room in which they were effectively trapped. "I'm willing to take the chance," he told them firmly.

Carson grimaced and Rodney shared his worry but he also agreed with the Colonel's assessment; right now they didn't have any other way out of here. Reluctantly, he added his weight to Sheppard's and they pushed firmly at the stubborn door until it suddenly gave and swung open away from them. Sheppard lurched forward a little as the door swung out and Rodney heard him give a startled, "Woah!" as he grabbed hold of the doorframe to steady himself.

What Rodney saw through the open doorway was enough to make him grab onto the doorframe too – more for reassurance than for balance. The door opened onto what he could only describe as a chasm; a huge, hollowed-out space under the surface of the planet. Their room was high up – horribly high up – on the side of the cavern and there was nothing beyond the door other than a sheer drop down to the chasm floor a long – long, long, _long_ – way below. What looked like horizontal mine shafts dotted the far wall of the cavern, daylight filtering in weakly through the openings, and built out from the opposite wall, were several box-like structures raised up from the cavern floor on tall metal stilts. Rodney was distinctly unsettled to see, here and there on the cavern floor, evidence of some of those same box-like structures having collapsed.

Feeling distinctly queasy, Rodney summed up the situation in what he felt was a succinct assessment. "Well, I guess in Genii, red means screwed."

Sheppard grimaced. "Okay." He swung the door closed, cutting off the gaping emptiness beyond, and looked at his watch. "Okay, look, it's... we've been in the field for, what, half an hour? We've got another five before we need to check in, so the safest thing for us to do is just sit tight and wait."

Rodney was not good at waiting. He wandered over to take another look at the control panel for the blue door.

"When we don't check in, they'll send a team," Sheppard theorised. "Our radios should work down here, right?"

Rodney nodded. "Yeah, they should."

Sheppard looked about as comfortable with the idea of a five hour wait as Rodney felt, opening a nearby locker and peering inside even as he confirmed, "Okay, so we sit and wait." He closed the locker door and opened the next one along.

Carson didn't seem to share Rodney and Sheppard's restlessness; he sat down on an abandoned crate with a resigned, "Okay." Rodney started trying to prise open the control panel, background bumps and clatterings telling him that Sheppard continued to search the rest of their meagre surroundings.

"Anyone bring any cards?" Carson asked, a little plaintively.

Sheppard laughed shortly. "'Fraid not, doc."

Rodney was about to add a scathing remark about how he'd make sure playing cards were included in the standard off-world kit whenever Carson was on a mission, when there was a sudden rumble and the room began to shake. Rodney stared up at the opening far above as the ground shook under his feet. "Tremor!" he gasped in horror, remembering the reason they were here in the first place – the dangerous instability of this region.

Carson had jumped up from his seat and had his arms outstretched, wobbling as he tried to balance against the shuddering of the floor; he looked terrified. Sheppard was holding onto the wall as the room shook, looking around in concern as an ominous creaking sound joined the rumbling. And then, as suddenly as it began, the tremor stopped.

For a moment there was silence.

"That sounded very, very bad," Rodney decided.

Sheppard swallowed audibly. "Uh, what do you suppose the probability is that this room is on the same kind of metal stilts as those other rooms we saw over there?"

Rodney thought about the rooms on stilts they'd seen across the cavern and how very high up they were… and how many of them were already crumpled on the cavern floor. His voice came out a little cracked when he replied, "Very high."

"But this one's more stable, right?" Carson fretted nervously. "I mean, we're still standing."

Sheppard looked around him thoughtfully. "Yeah, but with the three of us and this dirt, we've just added, what? Four, five hundred pounds?"

Rodney looked down at himself and did some rapid math, not liking the implications of the answers he was getting. "Uh, I'd say about six hundred," he admitted.

"Right." Sheppard was obviously doing his own math. "And this region experiences how many tremors a day?"

Rodney's heart sank into his boots. "Four times a day at least."

Sheppard grimaced, his mouth a tight, unhappy line as he cursed softly, "Shit."

Carson was following the conversation with a growing look of panic. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Sheppard explained the problem succinctly. "The supports that are stopping this room from dropping into the chasm are gonna rapidly destabilise now that we've added all this extra weight."

"I don't think we're gonna be able to just wait for Atlantis to figure out we're missing," Rodney added worriedly.

Sheppard nodded. One thing Rodney liked about working with Sheppard was that the man thought on his feet. He could pretty much keep up with Rodney – well, as much as anyone without multiple degrees could – and over the years they'd developed a kind of shorthand that, at times, came dangerously close to finishing each other's thoughts.

"You're right," Sheppard agreed. "We're gonna have to find a way out of here."

As Rodney craned his neck to look up at the hole in the ceiling, he was aware of Sheppard doing the same.

"Well, there are a lot of crates in here," Carson suggested hesitantly.

"Yeah, rickety old ones!" Rodney quantified, reminding them, "I killed, like, three of them on the way down!"

Carson wasn't convinced. "But maybe we could make a pyramid – stack them up and climb out?"

Rodney huffed in exasperation. "I don't think there's enough to..."

"There are, actually," Sheppard interrupted. He was eyeing the distance from the floor to the ceiling carefully and Rodney had to remind himself that Sheppard was a lot better at math than most people realised. "Just barely enough to get us high enough, but we should be able to make it work," Sheppard suggested.

Rodney didn't quite share Sheppard's confidence. "D'you think they'll support our weight?" he argued.

Sheppard had a familiar look on his face, the one that said he'd already decided on a course of action and was not going to be dissuaded. "There's only one way to find out," he stated firmly.

Rodney sighed heavily. Far be it for him to be the voice of negativity – or, more accurately, reason – but he had a bad feeling this was not going to end well. Figuring he had a better grasp of the engineering principles involved than Carson, Rodney joined Sheppard in manoeuvring various crates into position under the opening in the ceiling, leaving Carson to do what he could to reduce the weight they'd added to the room, using a broken sheet of metal as a scoop to shove as much dirt as possible out the red door. Rodney kept his eyes from the open door as he worked and tried resolutely not to think about the long drop below them or the flimsiness of the metal stilts that were all that was holding them in place.

He manhandled a crate into place with a groan – these things were heavier than they looked – and made one last attempt to make Sheppard consider the risks here.

"All right, look," he advised, "If we're actually gonna do this, I figure we need to stack these things, like, twenty feet high in order to climb out, so no matter how we build it, it's gonna be unstable."

Sheppard was unperturbed. "Well, only one person has to climb it," he countered mildly. As Carson swung the red door closed, to Rodney's unspoken relief, and moved to join the tower-building process, Rodney noticed an appraising look in Sheppard's eye as he looked over his team mates.

Apparently, Carson picked up on it too as his eyes widened and, before Sheppard could say a word, he objected, "Oh, no. I'm not good with heights, so..."

"So, Sheppard goes," Rodney finished firmly, forestalling discussion of any other options.

"What, you're not even gonna consider yourself?" Sheppard asked, a little pointedly.

"It's heights!" he repeated, in case Sheppard truly didn't realise the foolishness of his suggestion. "I'm probably worse than he is!"

Sheppard gave a somewhat put-upon sigh. "Let's get started," he decided.

"Alright." McKay waited as Sheppard climbed onto the collection of crates they'd placed under the opening and then he and Carson between them lifted a crate up and shuffled it onto the first layer, where Sheppard could position it according to whatever design he had in mind. It was back-breaking work, lifting the crates up to position them on the next layer, and it only got more so as the height of the tower increased and Rodney had to climb onto the first layer himself, Carson lifting the crates up to him and he having to lift them, on his own, high enough for Sheppard, already three layers up, to grab them from him. He gave a groan as he lifted yet another crate.

Sheppard was kneeling on the topmost layer, settling the last crate into place, when the rickety-looking tower began to creak ominously. Carson took an involuntary step back, a look of concern in his face. "Maybe you should come down from there," he suggested nervously.

Ignoring both the ominous noise and Carson's worry, Sheppard slid the crate into place and, carefully, climbed to his feet. He was close to the opening, Rodney could see, maybe even close enough to climb out if he could climb up onto that last crate…

The creaking was getting louder and Carson tried again, "It sounds like it's..."

Even as he spoke, even as Sheppard straightened up, his eyes on the opening above, there was a horrible snapping sound and Rodney felt the tower shake under his feet as one of the crates on the bottom layer gave way with a sharp retort. As the foundations collapsed, the entire tower gave way and Rodney was forced to jump quickly clear as the structure abruptly collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris. Sheppard, perched atop the tower, was thrown to the ground as the pile of crates first toppled sideways and then crumpled.

"Sheppard!" Rodney's panicked reaction was instinctive.

Carson was at Sheppard's side in an instant, all trace of his previous nervousness gone, the doctor replacing the reluctant gate-traveller. Sheppard, face down in the debris of the crate tower, gave a groan and moved sluggishly, trying to turn himself over.

"Easy, easy," Carson admonished, helping Sheppard to roll carefully onto his back. "You okay, Colonel?" he asked.

Sheppard didn't answer immediately and Rodney fretted impatiently, "Is he all right?"

Before Carson could answer, Sheppard pushed himself to a sitting position with a heartfelt groan and announced, "Oh, that was fun."

Rodney hid his relief under righteous reproval. "Look, the bottom level won't hold. The crates aren't strong enough to stack."

Sheppard grimaced stiffly. "Yeah, I got that, thanks," he grumbled pointedly.

Carson was the first to voice the thought on all of their minds – so now what? – but he'd barely opened his mouth when another tremor shook the room, everyone freezing in place as what was almost certainly the metal support struts under them creaked alarmingly. The tremor was mercifully short but it served to galvanise them to action.

"That's not good," Sheppard stated shortly, climbing determinedly, if stiffly, to his feet, Carson helping him up with a hand under his arm. "We need another plan – and quick," he told them.

The crates were out so they turned their attention to the rest of the room, searching through the debris and opening up every cupboard and drawer in the hope of finding something – anything – useful.

"I've got some files here," Carson announced, surfacing from the debris with a concertina file in his hands. He pulled a document at random out of the file and grimaced. "Anyone read Genii?"

Rodney was only vaguely listening to Carson because he'd just caught a glimpse of something much more interesting – and likely to be useful – in the pile of debris he was searching through. "Hello, hello!" he exclaimed as he reached down to snag an odd contraption of two three-pronged hooks joined together by a short metal bar.

"What have you got?" Sheppard asked, looking around from searching through another locker.

"Grappling hook," Rodney announced. "At least, something we can use as a grappling hook." He dumped the contraption onto of one of the intact crates and began working to unscrew the hinge connecting one of the hooks.

"Great!" said Carson. "Now all we need is some rope."

Rodney looked up at the opening, far above. "Okay, just a sec. The ceiling is, like, what, twenty feet?"

"Twenty five?" Carson hedged.

"All right, twenty five," he agreed, a little shortly. "So our jackets end to end are five or six feet. We tie those to our shirts, maybe even our pants together. That should be able to get us up there and support our weight," he decided.

Carson gave him a look that combined incredulity with mulish stubbornness. "I am not taking my clothes off and climbing out in my underwear!" he exclaimed.

Rodney bristled. "Look," he huffed impatiently, "do you want to get out of here or not?!"

Carson crossed his arms defensively, indignation colouring his cheeks, but before the argument could really get going Sheppard straightened up from his investigation of another locker and calmly announced, "Found rope."

Carson greeted the news with a smile of relief and Rodney's building ire quickly evaporated.

"Rope and lanterns," Sheppard expanded.

"Oh, good!" This was the first good news they'd had today. With a hook and sufficient rope, suddenly getting out of here was not quite the impossible task it had seemed.

Sheppard lifted the coil of rope out of the locker. "More than enough for what we need," he gauged.

Sheppard dumped the rope on the crate with the hooks and Rodney grabbed one end, already thinking ahead, envisioning freedom at the end of a swift, simple throw of the hook.

"What are you doing?" Sheppard interrupted.

Rodney regarded him in bemusement, hook and rope in hand. "Well, I'm gonna tie the rope on, toss it up there so you can climb up," he explained almost patiently.

"I can't do it."

"Hey, that's quitter talk," Rodney dismissed, surprised to hear Sheppard being so defeatist. A thrill of fear ran through him as he wondered if Sheppard was more seriously hurt than he was letting on, had really done some damage in one or both of the falls. Was that why he couldn't climb out of here..?

"No, I can't climb this," Sheppard explained. "This rope – it's too thin. We need to tie knots in it. I need something to grip onto."

"Oh. Right." Rodney's growing panic eased a little. He looked at the coil of rope and craned his neck to look up to the ceiling, feeling his heart sink. "That's a lot of knots," he commented morosely.

Sheppard shrugged. "We only need about," he glanced upwards, "thirty feet or so."

Rodney ran a quick calculation through his head… say one knot per foot or so of rope… and made a rapid decision. "Okay, well, you two get started on the knotting and I'll read those files." He put the rope and the hook back on the crate and, dusting off his hands, moved over to where Carson had left the concertina file.

As he picked up the file and began to leaf through it, he became aware of a conspicuous silence, and lack of rope-knotting type activity, and looked up to find both Sheppard and Carson regarding him incredulously.

"What?" he blustered. "Look, they could contain the code to the door there. Besides, three people can't knot the same rope." He waved a piece of paper, asking pointedly, "Unless either of you speak Genii?"

Carson rolled his eyes and Sheppard merely gave a small cynical smirk, his tone deliberately mild as he said, "Fine. We'll get started."

Rodney turned his attention to the motley collection of papers in the file and Carson and Sheppard started work on untangling the rope. For a moment or two, the only sound in the room was the rustle of papers and the rasp of rope sliding over rope.

Rodney was fairly engrossed in the, sadly, not exactly thrilling papers in the file and wasn't really paying attention when Carson and Sheppard began chatting as they worked. He lifted up his head only when the word "Cadman" caught his attention. Even after a couple of years, that woman still made him nervous, the memory of having her consciousness in his head still too unsettling.

"What?" he interrupted. "What about Cadman?"

"Nothing, McKay," Sheppard answered mildly. "We're just talking."

"About Cadman," he agreed a little nervously. "Why? Is she coming back to Atlantis?"

"Not that I'm aware, no," a hint of impatience had crept into Sheppard's voice and he was eyeing Rodney a little dubiously.

"Oh." Rodney tried to hide the flush of relief. "Okay."

"Would it really bother you that much if she were, Rodney?" Carson asked curiously.

"No, of course not!" he snapped, glaring at them both before turning back to the files with a muttered, "Having another person take over your body is a bundle of laughs."

"It wasn't exactly a carnival ride for me either, Rodney..." Carson teased but Rodney ignored him; he'd heard a noise, he was certain of it. A noise from up above. He tipped his head back to look at the opening far above. There it was again. Voices. It sounded like voices.

Carson was still prattling away in the background and Rodney shushed him impatiently, "Shut up a sec."

"No, Rodney!" Carson replied, affronted. "I can talk if I want to!"

"No-no-no," Rodney flapped a hand impatiently, still staring up at the ceiling, straining his ears to hear. "I hear something!"

Carson shut up at that and all three of them held their breath as they strained to listen. There! There it was again. Definitely voices!

Rodney felt adrenalin flood through him. People! People meant help, meant rescue. "There's someone up there!" he crowed. He was aware of Sheppard and Carson crowding in next to him to stare up at the hole as he yelled out hopefully, "Help! We're stuck down here! Hello?"

"What if the ceiling caves in on them too?" Carson fretted.

Rodney dismissed his concerns. "We caved through that section," he pointed out, indicating the pitted edges of the hole, "it's been eaten away by rust. The rest of the ceiling looks fine."

Sheppard squinted up at the metal of the ceiling. "He's right," he agreed. "As long as they don't fall in the hole, they should be able to get help."

The voices were closer now; whoever was up there, they were moving towards the hole. Sheppard tried to get their attention, shouting out, "Hello?"

"Help!" Rodney added, yelling as well. "We're stuck down here! Can you hear us?"

The voices stopped and then, a moment later, two faces appeared over the edges of the hole. They were boys, no older than teenagers, but they were people, people who could go and get help and get them out of here. They peered downwards in surprise, one of them venturing an uncertain, "Hello?"

"Oh, thank God!" Rodney huffed in relief.

The second boy found his voice. "Who are you?" he asked.

"We're visitors," Sheppard told them. "We were on our way to speak to the people of your settlement."

"You shouldn't be down there," the first boy told them dubiously.

"Yeah, we know! We fell in here by accident," Rodney explained.

The second boy seemed to realise the implications of that, asking, "You all okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, we're fine," Rodney dismissed, his mind focused on the greater goal; get help, get out of here. "We're just stuck. We need some help," he told them.

The first boy didn't look convinced. "You shouldn't be down there," he repeated, sounding oddly worried.

Rodney couldn't prevent a hint of irritation from creeping into his voice. "Yeah, thanks, kid!" he said pointedly, trying to get things back on track. "Like I said, we..."

He broke off as Sheppard none too subtly stepped in front of him, his manner easy-going as he called up to the boys, "Go tell your parents. Tell them where we are, that we're stuck and we need help."

Rodney could feel his patience rapidly draining as the boys shared an uncertain look. "I don't think we can do that," they decided.

Rodney was outraged. "What?! Why not?!" They were trapped, for god's sake. In imminent danger of falling to a very messy death thousands of feet below. What kind of backward, ignorant Neanderthal would refuse to help them?!

"We're not really supposed to play out here," one of the boys explained. "If our parents find out..."

Oh. Of course, Rodney realised with a kind of numb despair. The kind of backward ignorant Neanderthals who were too dumb to move out of a seriously geologically unstable region.

Sheppard was doing his best to play pals and talk the boys round. "It's okay," he reassured them. "I promise you won't get into trouble."

They didn't look convinced. "You don't know my father," one of them explained. "He'll be very upset."

"I'll explain the situation to him. It'll be okay." Sheppard was still trying to do the reassuring thing but it didn't seem to be working.

Carson tried another tack. "Please? We're ... hurt. We need help."

That didn't work either. The boys got suspicious, with one of them pointing at Rodney, "Wait a minute. He said you were all okay. I asked him."

And that was it. That was Rodney's patience for this farce all used up. This was _precisely_ why he didn't like children. He pushed past Sheppard, feeling his face flush as he snapped, "Alright. Listen to me, you little brats. I am older than you and I am in charge!"

He was vaguely aware of Carson trying to stop him, but he ignored the despairing "Rodney!" and the hand on his shoulder. "You will go back to your parents," he ordered angrily. "You will tell them we need help, or so help me..."

This time it was Sheppard who grabbed hold of him and the grip on his arm was firm and uncompromising, enough to make Rodney take notice, the initial flush of anger fading.

Sheppard ignored Rodney's outburst, still trying to play the persuasive card, "D'you need something?" he asked the boys. "Anything. We can get it for you. If you help us, we'll get you whatever you want."

That seemed to get a reaction and the boys started whispering to each other. The knot of fear in Rodney's chest eased a little. They were getting somewhere. The boys would get help. They'd get out of here.

"Oh, yes, good," he encouraged Sheppard. "Great idea, yes."

He ignored the tinge of sarcasm in Sheppard's wry, "Thanks."

Rodney regarded the boys' discussion a little impatiently. "Maybe you should offer to shoot their parents if they try to tell them off," he offered sourly.

Sheppard gave him a long, slow, disbelieving look. "McKay!"

"What?" Rodney didn't see the problem here. From his experience, most kids would jump at the chance if someone with a big gun offered to tell their parents off. "D'you wanna get out of here or not?!"

"I think we can reason with them without resorting to offers of bodily harm, McKay," Sheppard insisted.

Rodney wasn't so sure. "If you say so," he grumbled.

At that moment, entirely proving his point, the boys finished their whispered conversation and one of them announced, "We're gonna go now. Bye."

Before Rodney could even frame a suitably outraged reply, they scooted back from the hole and disappeared from view.

"No!" Carson cried. "Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait!"

A tousled head popped back into view and for a brief moment Rodney nursed a tiny spark of hope that the kids had seen sense, but of course it was not to be; the brat merely wished them good luck before disappearing again. Rodney turned to scowl at Sheppard. "I told you so."

"Forget it, McKay!" Sheppard advised shortly. He looked at his watch, his mouth twisting unhappily. "Four hours and fifty minutes," he sighed.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	2. Two

Rodney could feel panic starting to build. They were no closer to a way out of here and it was obvious no help was going to be forthcoming from above. The knowledge that he was trapped in this precarious box of a room, with no way out, was weighing more and more heavily on his mind. He swallowed, his throat feeling tight. "I'm warning you," he announced abruptly. "I mean, I can go crazy down here. Look, ever since the Jumper thing a couple of years ago, I've been very bad with tight spaces."

Sheppard snorted dismissively. "Well, at least you had the jumper to yourself. I was stuck with Zelenka the whole time we were looking for you."

Rodney was about to make a scathing reply pointing out just how entirely facile that comment was, given that he had been trapped, alone and injured, in a damaged jumper on the _bottom of the ocean_, when his brain ran through Sheppard's comment a second time and he stopped himself abruptly. "Wait a sec. What are you saying?" he demanded. "You don't like Zelenka?"

"No!" Sheppard denied quickly. "I just... I'm just saying, two people stuck in a small space is more claustrophobic than one..."

Rodney wasn't fooled for a second. "Yeah, but that's not what you said. You emphasised "Zelenka". You said you were stuck with Zelenka in the jumper – like that was the hard part."

"It did kinda sound that way," Carson pointed out apologetically.

"Look..." Sheppard tried to explain but Rodney cut him off gleefully.

"You can say you don't like him. It's fine! I don't like him!"

"He helped save your ass that time, McKay!" Sheppard said pointedly. He shrugged a little, his mouth twisting as he admitted, "He just kinda… well, we wasn't too comfortable with being underwater, that's all…"

"He wasn't too comfortable being off-world when we Rodney and Laura were trapped in that dart either," Carson added thoughtfully.

"And he saved your ass that time too, McKay," Sheppard argued.

"Oh, sure-sure-sure-sure! He's the best! You just don't like him," Rodney smirked.

"I didn't say that!" Sheppard protested.

"No, you didn't have to," Rodney smiled aggravatingly, before adding snidely, "And it was _my_ idea that fixed things after the Wraith dart fiasco." He jabbed a finger at his chest pointedly. And really, the least said about that whole experience, the better.

"It's not a contest!" Sheppard argued disbelievingly.

"Everything is a contest," Rodney declared.

Sheppard favoured Rodney with a long look, his lips pursing in exasperation. "Don't you have some reading to do?" he asked pointedly, gesturing at the abandoned file of Genii documents.

Rodney looked at the folder with disgust. "There's nothing in there," he complained. "I mean, there's certainly nothing about the door code."

Sheppard grimaced, hands on his hips. "So."

"So?" Rodney echoed.

Carson sighed. "Back to knotting."

With nothing else to occupy him, Rodney leaned himself against a stack of crates as Sheppard and Carson went back to working on the rope, joining in as they made desultory conversation.

"So what's happening with you and Katie now?" Carson suddenly asked.

Rodney grimaced. "Oh. Uh, well, it's kind of messed up now."

"Why?" Carson seemed surprised. "What happened?"

"Well, I was gonna propose..."

"You were?!" Okay, that was definitely surprised. Rodney fought a brief surge of irritation that everyone seemed to find it so surprising that he might one day get married. The he remembered what a mess he'd made of everything and had to admit that maybe everyone else had it right; maybe he wasn't cut out for marriage.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Bought her a ring and everything, you know, was gonna ask her… and then the quarantine error happened."

Carson's expression was bemused. "What does that have to do with anything?" he asked.

Rodney struggled to find the words to explain how everything had so suddenly and spectacularly fallen apart. "Well, I don't particularly want to go into the details but, you know, I just, I told her that I needed some time for me… You know, it had nothing to do with her, I just… I just needed to figure some stuff out. And now she doesn't wanna speak to me. She's filed for a transfer back to Earth…"

"You broke up with her," Carson stated. "That's a break-up."

"No, it isn't," Rodney argued.

Sheppard, who Rodney had actually told rather more about exactly what had happened, kept his attention on the rope he was tying a knot into as he agreed quietly, "Yeah, you did." Carson nodded.

"No," Rodney tried to explain. "I said I needed some time for me…"

"Which translates as "I'm not that into you any more." Carson told him.

"But I meant it!" Rodney protested.

"It doesn't matter!" Carson shook his head. "You can't almost propose to someone and then take it back. It's a relationship-killer."

Somewhere deep inside, Rodney knew that was true. He sighed. He really was just no good at this relationship stuff. He'd thought things might be different with Katie; she'd been sweet and gentle and he'd found he could even relax a little around her, just be himself. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she'd finally seen a little too much of what Rodney was really like.

"Oh, well," he tried to make light of things. "I suppose it's for the best. I mean, you know, she deserves to be with someone who would have known that."

"Rodney…" Carson's voice was exasperated but the smile on his face was genuine and warm. "What she deserves is to be with a nice guy, like you."

"Hey…" Sheppard looked up from his rope-knotting and Rodney was glad of the interruption.

"What?"

"We're finished." Sheppard held up the grappling hook, a good 30+ metres of knotted rope tied firmly to it.

"Finally!" he huffed, all but snatching the hook from Sheppard's hand.

"Rodney…"

He ignored Sheppard's exasperated protest. He was getting out of here, right now, this instant, before he went stir crazy…or before another tremor collapsed the weakened struts that were all between him and certain death.

Stalking away from Sheppard, he positioned himself under the hole in the ceiling and let the coil of rope drop to the floor, shaking it out a little to make sure it wasn't tangled. He was dangling the hook from his right hand, playing out the rope a little to get enough length for a decent swing, when he heard voices coming from up above. Children's voices, a boy crying, "Here! Over here!"

Rodney looked around at Sheppard and Carson, a disbelieving smile on his face. "You guys hear that?"

"It's the kids!" Carson realised. "They've come back for us!"

Relief flooded through him. "Oh, I knew they were good kids! I knew it!" Rodney grinned. He turned his face up to the hole far above and raised his voice to yell, "Down here! I knew you'd come back! Guys?!"

The ceiling creaked a little as two familiar faces appeared over the lip of the hole, the two boys standing clear of the edge and leaning forward to peer down at the people below. A moment later two more boys also leant into view.

"Woah!" One of the new arrivals breathed, obviously impressed.

"See?" The taller of the boys gloated to his friend. "I told you they were down there!"

Rodney's heart began to sink, the brief moment of hope slipping through his fingers like so much sand.

"Are your parents up there?" Sheppard asked uncertainly. "Did you bring help?"

"No." One of the boys gestured at the two new additions. "Our friends didn't believe us. We bet them a week's supply of taffa that we were telling the truth." The little monster was actually smiling, pleased with himself.

One of the other two threw a dark look at his friend. "See? I told you not to!" he complained ungraciously.

"Where are the adults?" Rodney demanded, still clinging to a miniscule crumb of hope that the kids had seen sense, that they weren't going to do what he thought they were going to…

"We can't tell them!" the boys exclaimed. "We'll get in trouble!"

"Trouble?!" Rodney's frustration bubbled over into furious anger. "You wait 'til I get out of here, you little brats! I'll show you what trouble is!"

Startled by his outburst, the kids scattered, disappearing from view, and before anyone could say a word a dreadful rumble started up and the room began to shake horribly.

"Tremor!" Carson cried desperately. "We're moving!"

The floor shook and trembled under Rodney's feet as he staggered to the far wall, clinging to its support. He was aware of a horrible moving sensation and his sense of balance was thrown off as the floor seemed to move under him.

"We're tilting over!" Sheppard yelled. He and Carson were trying to steady themselves against the piled up crates as the entire room leaned over to one side. Rodney's imagination all too readily supplied a picture of the metal struts supporting the room twisting and bending until they snapped and he scrunched his eyes closed and waited for the inevitable.

And then it stopped. The noise faded away, the shaking ceased and the tremor was over. And they weren't dead.

"It's stopped," Carson breathed hesitantly.

Rodney opened his eyes to find the room tilted significantly to one side, the floor now sloping downwards towards the red door. The door that led out to the gaping chasm.

"The super-structure under this room must have buckled," Sheppard murmured. He straightened slowly from a wide-footed, braced position, letting outspread arms drop to his sides.

McKay couldn't even bring himself to comment on Sheppard's astounding talent for stating the obvious. "One more tremor and this whole chamber's gonna fall into the chasm," he moaned hollowly.

For a moment or two, Rodney was reluctant to move, unable to escape the fear that any shift in the weight in the room would destabilise them completely and send them crashing to the chasm floor. But if he didn't move, they'd never get out of here and he wanted very much to get out of here. After a tentative step or two, during which they didn't die and there was no further ominous creaking or trembling from below, he hurried back to the hole in the ceiling, where a scattering of fresh dirt had poured into the room during the tremor, and picked up where he left off, straightening out the coil of rope and giving the grappling hook an experimental swing or two.

"Rodney."

The room had gotten noticeably gloomier as the day wore on and Sheppard had lit a couple of lanterns he'd dug out of the lockers and Carson was hanging them about the room, giving them all a little more light to work by. Sheppard was now watching Rodney's preparations with a slightly uncomfortable look. "Why don't you let me do that?" he suggested mildly.

"No, I can do it." Rodney's determination was fuelled by a desperate desire not to die. He was getting out of here.

Sheppard's face scrunched up, his expression reluctant. "C'mon, Rodney. Have you ever even done anything like this before?"

"Yes, actually, I have," Rodney lied, feeling a little affronted. "Lots of times."

Before Sheppard could press him on exactly when, Rodney started swinging the hook in a determined circle, building up some momentum, and Sheppard shrugged and stepped back out of the way. Not far enough out of the way as it happened; Rodney got a decent amount of speed and let fly, hurling the hook up at the opening as hard as he could… only his aim was off and the hook missed the opening by a good metre or more, bouncing off the ceiling with a reverberating clang and ricocheting back down into the room to smack against the wall inches from Sheppard's head. It hit the metal wall hard enough to draw sparks even as Sheppard ducked instinctively to the side.

"McKay!"

"Sorry! Sorry!"

"You just about took my head off!" Sheppard's expression would have been almost comical if Rodney hadn't been a little freaked out by the fact that he'd just nearly scalped his friend with a grappling hook. That and the whole imminent plunge to the death thing.

"I didn't mean to," he apologised. "It ... slipped." He looked around for the hook, finding it across the room where it had actually embedded itself into one of the rusting, corroded pipes running along the wall. He had to jiggle it to work the prong free of the crumbling metal.

Sheppard was waiting under the hole, holding out his hand peremptorily. "Let me do it."

Rodney refused to hand over the hook. This was a matter of pride now and he was going to do this, was going to get them out of here. "I can do it," he insisted.

"Apparently you can't," Sheppard disagreed pointedly.

"I can do it. I was almost there..."

He took up his stance again, letting the rope play through his hands until the hook was swinging the way he wanted it. Sheppard gave him a last long look, his hands on his hips, and then stalked away to join Carson who, Rodney noticed with a sting of pride, had taken cover behind one of the larger crates.

Rodney was determined to get it right this time. He swung the hook around three times, building up just enough momentum, but not too much, and hurled it up at the opening. This time his aim was much better… but he hadn't given it enough power and the hook didn't quite reach as far as the hole before falling back into the room. Rodney stepped quickly out of the way of the falling hook and the next thing he knew there was a sudden blast of heat and light and he was thrown to the side.

For a panicked moment, he thought this was it, the room was falling. But the room wasn't shaking, wasn't falling, and the roar that filled his ears wasn't the thunder of another tremor. And the heat prickling at his skin was… he scrambled to his hands and knees and was stunned to see a plume of flame spurting from the corroded metal pipe… the one he'd pulled the hook free from. Dammit. Who would have thought after all this time the pipe would still be sound, would still contain what was obviously flammable gas? The hook must have hit the pipe a second time, he realised, and struck sparks. He cursed the Genii one more time for their cavalier attitude, for taking what they wanted from this planet and then leaving, without even taking the time to properly shut down their operation and make sure it was safe.

The heat from the flame was intense, roaring over his head like a furnace, and he was far too close to it, could feel the scorched air already pressing against the fabric of his uniform, tingling the skin on his face and hands. Carson had scrambled away from the fire and was sheltering behind one of the larger crates, trying to block out the searing heat. Sheppard on the other hand, was moving towards the flame.

"What are you doing?!" cried Carson, echoing Rodney's stunned disbelief.

"Stay there!" Sheppard inched around the roaring inferno, raising his arms to shield his face from the intense heat, and got around behind the pipe. He reached for a large metal wheel and McKay realised what he was doing; there was a shut-off valve. Sheppard grabbed hold of the wheel and immediately jerked back, snatching his hands away from the obviously hot metal. Rodney watched helplessly through a shimmering heat haze as Sheppard rolled down his sleeves and hunched his arms up to pull the ends of the sleeves down over his hands before reaching again for the wheel. With a grimace of effort he turned the wheel roughly once and twice to the right and suddenly the flames died as the gas supply was cut off.

Rodney breathed a sigh of relief, goosebumps springing up on his flesh as the intense heat receded. He rose unsteadily to his feet to find Carson at his side, looking him over with an appraising eye. "Anything hurt?" Carson asked.

"Just my pride," Rodney mumbled shakily.

Carson smiled in relief. "That'll heal," he teased, not unkindly.

Sheppard had picked up the hook and, even as Rodney recovered his equilibrium, was swinging the rope through two short, swift circuits before tossing the hook upwards in a perfect trajectory that carried it smoothly out through the hole.

"You did it!" Carson crowed.

Rodney couldn't help but feel a little piqued at Carson's obvious admiration. "Oh, great!" he agreed, not quite managing to sound entirely sincere.

Sheppard wrapped the rope around his wrist and gave a firm tug, taking up the slack. "Alright," he murmured, "here goes nothing…"

Carefully, he pulled downwards, slowly transferring his body weight to the rope. Almost immediately soil began to rain down into the room and the rope quickly went slack, the hook sliding back over the lip of the hole to fall back into the room, dragging clumps of soil and grass with it. Sheppard danced back out of the way as the loose earth poured into the room. When it stopped, he moved back under the hole, regarding the new pile of soil with a grimace of distaste.

"Dammit," he cursed.

Retrieving the hook, Sheppard swung it again, spinning it smoothly a few times before letting it fly. Once again, it sailed easily out of the hole above and Rodney found himself fighting a flush of resentment at how easy Sheppard made it all look.

The results, however, where the same; as soon as Sheppard tried to put his weight on the rope, the hook tore free of the loose soil up above, dragging dirt and grass with it as it fell back into the room.

Sheppard shook his head in frustration. "There's no way the hook can grab onto that soil."

Carson regarded the length of rope morosely. "All those knots," he commented.

"Well, we had to try," Sheppard shrugged. He looked around at the two of them. "Any other ideas?"

Rodney looked quickly around the room, trying to think of other options; stacking the crates hadn't worked, climbing a rope out hadn't worked… there had to be some other way they could bridge the distance from the floor up to the hole in the ceiling above… bridge! That was it! He snapped his fingers excitedly as he stared up at the broad ceiling beams crossing the room, a plan forming rapidly.

"See those beams up there?" he pointed to the solid metal beams. "We use the rope to get up there. That buys us at least ten feet, then we build a bridge. A bridge using…"

He looked around quickly and zeroed in on a couple of long, wide planks. "Using these!" he finished, grabbing hold of the topmost plank and dragging it over to the centre of the room.

"Stack a couple of crates, we're gold," he enthused, "and we got that high before."

Sheppard's expression was thoughtful as he considered Rodney's idea. "Yeah, but I don't think these are long enough to span the distance between these two beams," he mused, eyeing the planks.

Rodney was not to be deterred. "So we find a hammer and nails."

"Sure," Sheppard waved a hand expansively. "Why not just add a jet pack and a trampoline to that list?"

Rodney pulled open a locker. "It is possible to find a hammer and nails," he maintained.

Carson's voice was dubious as he pointed out, "We've been over the room pretty thoroughly."

But dammit, this was a good idea. It could work, Rodney knew it. He pulled open another locker. "But there's gotta be hammer and nails," he insisted despairingly.

"Well, even if we found them..." Sheppard began.

"Look, we just have to build a bridge." Rodney was getting frustrated. This idea would work, he knew it. All they needed to make it work was a goddamn hammer and nails – was that so much to ask? Couldn't the stupid Genii have left them just one useful thing?!

"Wait a second, wait a second!" Carson had a look of dawning excitement on his face. "What about that trick?"

Sheppard looked nonplussed. "What?"

"That stupid trick you can do with beer glasses!"

Sheppard looked to Rodney with a frown and a shrug of confusion. Rodney was equally lost.

"We don't know what you're talking about," he told Carson.

"It's one of those lateral thinking things…" Carson was suddenly rummaging around in the lockers himself, pulling out odds and ends as he explained. "You know? The kind of stupid thing you do to win money off your mates in the pub after a few pints…"

Rodney watched in bemusement as Carson tipped an armful of junk onto the top of a crate and set about arranging three metal cups in a rough triangle before holding up a handful of fairly blunt looking dinner knives.

"The idea is this," Carson explained. "Using these three knives and without moving these three cups, you need to build a bridge that can support another cup's weight."

"We don't have another cup," Rodney pointed out pedantically, failing to see what possible use this was going to be.

"Well, whatever." Carson scouted around and picked up a small plastic cylinder. "We'll use this. OK, now, see..." He used one knife to demonstrate that the cups were too far apart for the knives to bridge the spaces between them.

"Just like our boards, just a little too short to span the space between the two beams there." He gestured upwards, and Rodney looked up at the beams overhead… and just at that moment a loud, distinctly worrying creak sounded from underneath them. They all froze in place and Rodney abruptly ran out of patience with Carson's long-winded explanation.

"OK, you know what? I'm a genius, I can probably figure it out, but a little under the gun, so..." He waved his hand in a vague "hurry it up" motion.

"Okay." Carson looked as freaked out as Rodney felt and he rushed to demonstrate his idea, resting one end of each knife on a cup and swivelling the other ends together in the centre of the triangle, pushing them together so that the ends overlapped and, as they were pushed more tightly together, locked in place, each knife held firmly by the other two knives. With a triumphant smile, Carson placed the plastic cylinder on top of the interlocked knives, where it sat securely.

Rodney had realised what Carson was showing them before he had finished pushing the overlapping knives into place. His mind racing, calculating distance and length and weight and a million other variables, he turned away from the demonstration, gazing up at the beams overhead. He was vaguely aware of Sheppard moving past him toward the planks.

"This could work…" Rodney muttered to himself.

"Of course it'll work." Carson was beaming, impressed with himself. "Even after several single malts it works!"

"If this gets us out of here, I'll buy you a _bottle_ of single malt," Rodney promised fervently.

It took some time to put the plan into action. The first stage was to get up to the beams themselves, Sheppard shimmying up a rope at a speed that made it look easy. Rodney stayed on the floor, dealing with the mathematical end of the process – mass and force, weight and counterweight. With Carson's help, he used their packs as counterweight, tying them to the end of the rope slung over the beam, adding the weight to their own to pull down on the rope and lift the heavy planks attached to the other end.

Once the first plank was raised high enough and loosely tied into place, it was Carson's turn to climb the rope, rather more slowly and nervously than Sheppard. With Rodney and the counterweight pulling from below and Sheppard or Carson pulling from above, they slowly got all the last two planks raised up to the beam and lashed loosely in place. It was an arduous process, made awkward, and dangerous, by the difficulty of moving about on the, to Rodney's mind, far too narrow surface of the beams.

The height and precariousness of their perch didn't seem to bother Sheppard; he moved about confidently, keeping his balance easily, sometimes looping a casual hand around the dangling wire of a light fitting. As if that would bear his weight if he slipped, Rodney fretted. Carson leant far more towards Rodney's way of thinking, moving about in a slow, unhappy crouch, hanging on to a large upright support with a death grip, his eyes determinedly averted from the long drop below.

Eventually, they were in position, each of them sitting on the end of a loosely tied plank and carefully, laboriously, using their own body weight to counter the weight of the planks as they swung them out over the gap between the beams, bringing the ends together until they met and, finally, interlocked. Once the basic structure was there, and they were no longer bearing the full weight of the planks, they could kick and shove them closer together, making sure they were locked tight in place. They let go gingerly and the structure held. Sheppard, hanging onto the electric cable again, leaned his weight onto the bridge and took a couple of years off of Rodney's lifespan by bouncing gently. It held. They'd done it. They'd made a bridge. Sheppard grinned and they hurried to tie the planks off firmly to the beams, lashing the structure in place.

Then came the really fun part – getting the remarkably heavy crates up to the bridge to be stacked. It took all three of then to achieve it, Sheppard taking point in the middle of the bridge to position and stack the crates, Carson balancing uneasily on the beam and Rodney on the floor below, the two of them working together to haul the crates up, inch by inch. They got one large crate in place, balanced in the centre of the bridge, and worked quickly to get a second, smaller crate lifted up. With the two crates stacked atop each other, the hole above looked easily within reach. Rodney watched from the ground, his heart in his mouth, as Sheppard climbed up to kneel carefully on the lower crate.

Something creaked loudly.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Carson muttered nervously, edging closer towards the solid upright support beam.

Sheppard's attention was focused on the hole above; he was looking up, judging distances. He was close, Rodney could see. Really close.

A horribly cracking sound echoed from somewhere amongst the precarious wooden structure.

Rodney swallowed, fear racing through him. "Listen. I know I have a reputation for being overly pessimistic," he gabbled, "but I really think you should come down right now before it all collapses."

Sheppard turned for a moment to look down at him and Rodney's heart sank at the familiar look of stubborn determination. Slowly, Sheppard began to straighten up, standing upright on the larger wooden crate. There was another ominous creaking noise.

"John! John, just head back!" Rodney begged.

"I'm almost there." Sheppard didn't look down, his gaze fixed on the hole just above him. He reached up, managing to get a hand to the lip of the hole, and put one knee on the topmost crate.

At that very moment, just as Sheppard began to transfer his weight up onto the final crate, the earth shuddered unhappily and the room began to judder and shake as another tremor hit.

"Oh no!" Carson grabbed for the support beam, hanging on for dear life as the tremor shook the beam under his feet. Balanced precariously atop the stacked crates, Sheppard had nowhere to go and nothing to grab hold of as one of the planks snapped with a sharp retort. The bridge collapsed with devastating suddenness and Sheppard and the crates plummeted to the floor.

Rodney watched in horror as Sheppard hit the ground hard, dust and splinters of wood thrown up by the impact.

"John!" Carson reached out instinctively, uselessly, as Sheppard fell. Rodney was already rushing to Sheppard's side as Carson struggled to climb down from his perch on the beam. Sheppard was already rolling onto his back, groaning painfully, as Rodney dropped to a crouch beside him.

"Don't move!" he snapped, glancing up anxiously in case anything else was about to drop on them. "Don't move!"

Rodney reached out a hand, trying to steady Sheppard as he grimaced in pain. He was clearly a little stunned by the fall, his arms moving restlessly as he panted through the pain.

Carson scrambled hurriedly down a rope with more agility than Rodney had ever seen the man display and dropped to his knees beside Sheppard.

"Let me see," he instructed gently, running his hands quickly over Sheppard's torso and legs. Carson's head jerked up in consternation as Sheppard yelped at the touch to his leg. Rodney could actually see the sweat spring up on Sheppard's face as his neck and jaw tensed.

Carson's expression was regretful, his voice muted, as he told Sheppard quietly, "Your leg is broken."

Sheppard was still breathing heavily, gritting his teeth tightly as he writhed against the pain. When he shuddered and let his head drop back to the dusty floor, his voice came out tight and breathless, "We're in trouble now, aren't we?"

"No, no. We'll be fine." Rodney offered reassurance he didn't feel. "We just, uh... we'll be fine." He wasn't even convincing himself.

"Rodney, can you get me my medical kit please?"

Sheppard was pale and breathless, the pain on his face obvious, and Rodney was more than a little worried. What the hell were they going to do now? How were they going to get out of here when one of them had a broken leg?

"Rodney?" Carson prompted gently and Rodney shook himself out of his stupor. They'd find a way out of this. They would. They had to. He stumbled to his feet and hurried over to retrieve Carson's pack. He flinched at the sound of Sheppard's pained grunt and looked over to see Carson carefully rolling up Sheppard's right pants leg. Grabbing the bag, he hurried back over to crouch beside his friend.

He watched helplessly as Carson opened up the medical kit, laying it within easy reach, and finished rolling up Sheppard's pants. Sheppard lay still, staring up at the ceiling, the tension in his muscles betraying his pain.

"Okay," Carson leaned over Sheppard's leg and gave Rodney a serious look. "Will you help me?" he asked calmly. Feeling anything but calm, Rodney nodded.

"Okay. One hand here, on his knee..."

Carson guided Rodney's uncertain hand into place and shifted his attention to Sheppard's ankle, pushing the topmost edge of a black sock out of the way. Sheppard tensed a little more, his leg muscles thrumming under Rodney's hand, and gave a muffled grunt.

"...one hand down here, near his ankle," Carson finished, indicating where he wanted Rodney to grip. "Keep it nice and straight."

Rodney did as he was told, pressing gently on Sheppard's knee and ankle, holding the lower leg immobile.

Carson's expression was apologetic as he told Sheppard, "You're not gonna like this, but I've got to take your boot off."

Sheppard swallowed, pain tightening his face. "Yeah, I thought you might," he muttered hoarsely. Rodney's stomach turned queasily as he watched Sheppard struggle with the pain as Carson carefully unlaced his right boot. He was uncomfortably reminded of the iratus bug incident, all those years ago, back when they'd only just arrived in Pegasus and he'd barely gotten to know John Sheppard.

Even then he'd been a stoic sonofabitch, gritting his teeth through the pain and keeping his head – and forcing Rodney to keep his – despite the ugly great damn bug clinging to his neck and slowly sucking the life of out him. Except the iratus bug's MO was pain followed by expanding numbness – a badly broken leg wasn't half so accommodating, offering nothing but pain, pain and more pain, and Sheppard's face was drawn with the effort of holding himself together. Rodney watched him quietly brace himself as Carson warned him, "Okay. Here it comes."

Carson was as gentle as he could be as he worked the loosened boot off Sheppard's foot but Sheppard gave a strangled cry nonetheless, his leg jerking minutely under Rodney's hands.

"Okay," Carson's expression was intent, focused on his work, as he quickly pulled Sheppard's sock off. "Tell me when you can feel my finger on the bottom of your foot."

Sheppard grimaced, his gaze still fixed on the ceiling. "Okay," he gasped.

Rodney held Sheppard's leg still while Carson gently pressed his finger against the sole of Sheppard's foot.

"Yep," Sheppard breathed. "Yeah."

Carson's finger moved up the foot and pressed again. "Here?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay." Carson sat back on his heels and looked around at the debris of shattered crates, picking out a longish, straight piece of wood. "We need to find another one of these," he told Rodney, "and make a splint."

"Okay." Rodney clambered awkwardly to his feet and looked around him; the floor was littered with remnants of the several crates that had been destroyed in their attempts to climb out of here. Carson took a few steps away from Sheppard to pick up a likely piece of wood and, with a quick glance at Sheppard's pale face, Rodney discretely followed.

He kept his voice quiet as he asked Carson seriously, "Look, how bad is he?"

Carson spoke quietly too, his expression serious. "Well, it's not so bad," he hedged. "He still has feeling in his foot, so there doesn't seem to be any nerve damage, but the break's pretty severe ... which means there may very well be internal bleeding."

Rodney swallowed. That didn't sound good at all. "Yeah, but that's... I mean, that's bad, isn't it?"

"Well, it's not really good, no," Carson agreed, his frustration evident. "I mean, I would need to get him under a scanner."

Rodney exhaled slowly, his mind working, trying to calculate options and probabilities. "Okay, worst case scenario," he asked, "he's bleeding internally. How long has he got before he... before it becomes very serious?"

Carson grimaced, clearly unhappy. "An hour," he admitted.

"Oh, boy."

"Come on." Carson waved the piece of wood he'd been examining and moved back over to where Sheppard lay tense and still. Rodney followed numbly, a terrible fear gnawing at his stomach.

Sheppard looked up at them, his face pale and drawn but with a familiar determined set, and asked bluntly, "So, what? An hour before internal bleeding becomes a problem?"

Rodney gaped. "How did you...?"

Sheppard grinned tightly. "It's not my first rodeo, Rodney."

Carson was rummaging through his medical kit; he pulled out a blister pack of pills and handed it to Sheppard. "Here's some ibuprofen."

Rodney was stunned. "Ibuprofen?!" Sheppard had a broken leg, for crying out loud. What good was ibuprofen going to do?! "That's the strongest thing you've got?!" he asked disbelievingly.

"It's all I have in this basic kit," Carson explained apologetically. He grimaced. "Although from this point on I think I'm making morphine mandatory." He glanced up at the ceiling, far above, and added sourly, "As well as maybe a grappling gun."

Sheppard had popped a couple of tablets out of the blister pack and, having no water to hand, he simply chewed on them as Carson began to splint his leg. "I wouldn't take the morphine," he admitted, pain tightening his voice, "gotta keep a clear head." He looked up at Rodney. "We still have to figure out a way out of here – at least, one of us does. Chances are pretty slim that I'm gonna climb out. Ow." He flinched, tensing painfully at Carson's careful touch.

Rodney sighed in frustration. "Yeah, well, the crates are out."

"Yeah," Sheppard agreed unhappily.

Rodney looked around the room, trying to think, to find a solution. He looked back at Sheppard, lying pale and injured on the floor, and could feel the edges of panic fluttering in his chest, making it hard to concentrate. Carson was preoccupied with wrapping a bandage around Sheppard's leg, strapping the splints firmly into place. "Hey, if you've got an idea, feel free," Rodney prompted.

Carson's expression was regretful as he glanced up. "Hey, I came up with the bar trick thing, okay?" he pointed out. "And that didn't work out so well, so I think I'll just leave it to the pros."

"Yeah," Rodney murmured morosely.

He cast a quick, hopeful glance at Sheppard who gave him a tight grin that verged on a grimace. "Sorry, " he grated dryly, "All my energy's focussed on not screaming right now."

Rodney could see the tension in Sheppard's jaw, his hands curled into fists, and knew that, despite the attempt at levity, Sheppard wasn't joking.

"Wonderful…" Rodney muttered heavily. He tilted his head up, looking at the hole in the ceiling, thinking aloud as he summed up their situation. "Okay. Well, the grappling hook didn't work because the hook wouldn't hold our weight in the soil. The crates didn't work because Sheppard was too heavy..."

Despite being laid out helpless on the floor, gritting his teeth as Carson splinted his broken leg, Sheppard still managed to give him an incredulous glare.

"Well, you were!" Rodney justified indignantly. "Which is not to say that Carson or I wouldn't have been but we'll never know will we because the crates are wrecked. All I'm saying is that you were the one climbing the crates and therefore the one whose weight made them break so logically…"

"McKay!" He stopped rambling, brought up short by Sheppard's impatient interruption. "Stay on topic," Sheppard ordered.

"Right, right, okay." Rodney gave himself a mental shake and tried to focus his thoughts, running through an inventory of what they had at their disposal. "Uh, where was I?" He looked around the room, formulating solutions and discarding them just as quickly, until he caught sight of a length of metal pole leaning against one wall. An idea sparked in his brain and this one he didn't discard.

"Uh, alright. Look." He moved over to grab the pole and brought it over to Carson and Sheppard, explaining, "If we can get this rod up there, attach the rope to it, it'll lay across the hole, support our weight. We don't have to worry about the soil."

Carson looked dubious, to say the least. "You were barely able to get the grappling hook up there," he pointed out.

"'Barely'?!" Rodney huffed indignantly. He'd almost had it when Sheppard had stepped in and taken over. "Were you not watching? It was..."

"It's just that it's a lot heavier than that," Sheppard interrupted hoarsely, the pained breathlessness in his voice effectively derailing Rodney's wounded pride. He looked around again, searching for a solution. Some way to get the metal piping up through the hole above.

"So, we..." His muttered words tailed off abruptly as his gaze fell on the gas pipe. The one that had ignited and nearly flambéed him. The one full of _flammable gas_. His mind raced, a vague idea becoming a fully-formed plan within seconds. "A detonator," he announced urgently. "I need a detonator!"

Carson regarded him blankly. Sheppard meanwhile, simply fumbled open one of the pockets on his tac vest and a moment later held out a small electronic detonator. At any other time Rodney would have probably had some smart comment to make about how Sheppard couldn't seem to go off-world without a stash of explosives in his tac vest but right now he could have kissed him. He grabbed the detonator from Sheppard's trembling hand and turned his attention to finding what else he needed; a decent sized length of pipe and enough cloth to stuff into any gaps and create a seal.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	3. Three

He explained his plan as he went, talking over his shoulder as he rummaged through the lockers, pulling out rags and tossing them into a pile. By the time he had gathered together a sufficient collection of rags and pulled a piece of thick piping from the rubble littering the floor, Carson had finished splinting Sheppard's leg and Rodney co-opted him into helping to implement his plan.

They had to move Sheppard safely away from the gas pipe, the two of them helping to bear his weight as they scooted him as gently as possible over to the far side of the room, leaning him against the wall in a sitting position. Despite their care, Sheppard's face had been pinched and grey as they'd gently set him down.

Rodney then turned his attention to building a makeshift cannon. He armed the detonator before placing it in the end of a length of pipe and then carefully lifted the length of pipe across to the gas pipe, murmuring half to himself, half in explanation to Carson as he did, "First you fix the detonator in the bottom of the tube… Okay. Now..."

Carson had twisted some of the cloths into a ring around the hole that Rodney had – accidentally – made in the gas pipe and Rodney lowered his piece of piping carefully over the open hole, resting one end of the pipe onto the wadded material so that it stood on end over the hole. Carson, somewhat gingerly, took hold of the piece of piping and held it in place as Rodney began to wrap more pieces of cloth around the bottom of the pipe, explaining, "...we have to seal the bottom of the tube around the gas leak, like so."

Satisfied that any gaps were sealed about as tightly as they were likely to get, Rodney used rope to tie the "cannon" tightly in place, wrapping it around the pipe barrel and around the gas pipe before knotting it firmly. Once it was secure, Rodney left Carson to push more fabric into the mouth of the pipe, to act as wadding, whilst he fetched the length of metal rod, to which he had already firmly tied – and taped for good measure - one end of their knotted rope.

"All right," Rodney supervised, "so, put the wadding and the rod into the barrel, and then gently create a seal." He slid the rod carefully into place and joined Carson in packing more cloth in around it. "Don't pack it too tight," he warned, "otherwise we've got ourselves a pipe bomb, but if we play it right..."

They pushed the rest of the rags carefully into place and Rodney stood back, declaiming with a smile, "...our very own cannon."

"You really think this is gonna work?" Carson asked dubiously.

"It should," Rodney insisted.

Carson stepped back from the pipe, giving Rodney an odd look. "You can build a cannon, just like that?" he asked.

"Please!" Rodney scoffed dismissively. Cannons were easy. It was the most basic of physics. "I've got access to pressurised gas. It's a cinch!"

He grinned, warming up to his subject. "You should have seen my Grade Six science project. I actually had to..."

"Rodney." Sheppard sighed tiredly, his voice tinged with exasperation. It was enough to interrupt Rodney and focus his mind on what they were doing, and why.

"Right," he muttered. "Okay. Yeah."

He positioned himself at the wheel of the shut off valve, leaving Carson to crouch behind the pipe, squinting along their makeshift cannon to make sure it was aimed at the hole up above.

Rodney took hold of the wheel, feeling a heady mixture of excitement and nervousness. "Alright." He looked over at Carson. "Ready?"

Carson nodded and Rodney quickly turned the wheel, opening the valve that would release the flammable gas into the pipe and hence into their cannon. He waited a few seconds, calculating the flow and volume of gas roughly in his head, and then shut the valve off.

"Alright. Okay." Nervousness was winning out over excitement. He looked at Carson. This was it. "And ... are we ready?"

Carson didn't look particularly happy about being so close to the cannon but despite his obvious fear he nodded quickly. "Ready."

Rodney dug in his pocket and pulled out the remote trigger, also courtesy of Sheppard – naturally – and gripped it firmly.

"Fire in the hole!" he announced, instinctively cringing away as he pressed the switch. There was a muffled boom inside the piece of pipe and the metal rod and half the wadding were spat out of the opening in a blast of hot air, the rod sailing smoothly up and out of the hole in the ceiling, trailing the rope behind it. As quickly as that, it was over, the rope pulling taught and then slackening again as the metal rod was brought to a halt and fell to earth.

"Nice aim!" Rodney grinned.

"Nice cannon!" Sheppard echoed.

Rodney unfastened the rope from the heavy crate he'd used to tether it and took a good grip on the rope as he positioned himself under the hole. He gave a good pull and felt the metal rod slide over the loose soil above, the rope moving through his hands as he pulled again, moving the rod closer to the opening. He was vaguely aware of Carson picking up the end of the rope, taking up the slack as Rodney fed the rope through his hands.

As the rod slid closer, loose soil began to trickle over the edge of the hole, raining down on him. Shaking the dirt from his hair, he moved to one side and continued pulling on the rope, dragging the rod nearer. More and more dirt began to spill over the edge of the hole, the rod obviously dragging through the loose earth and uprooting it, pulling it with it as it moved. Thick clumps of earth and grass were falling into the room now, a constant flow of dirt pouring through the hole, showering down on all of them.

"Uh, McKay? You should stop." Sheppard coughed, his arms raised to try and shelter his head from the rain of soil. "There's too much dirt coming in. The room's gonna get too heavy."

They were close. So close. If he could just get the rod in place, the added weight wouldn't matter because they could climb out of here…

"I've almost got it!" Rodney insisted, continuing to pull at the rope. Carson was still holding on to the end of the rope but he'd stopped taking up the slack, his attention fixed nervously on the dirt pouring in through the hole, more and more of it as the rod inched closer. They were almost there. Almost free. And then, without warning, with a horrendous groaning of metal, the entire room shifted and tilted. The movement was slow at first, a gradual lean to one side, and then there was a sharp retort from under the floor and suddenly everything was happening very fast.

The room tilted sharply, the floor dropping away under Rodney's feet. He grabbed instinctively for the nearest pillar, wrapping his arms around it, even as Carson lost his footing and stumbled backwards towards the red door. Rodney watched in horror, everything seeming to happen in slow motion, as Carson fell onto the door and it swung open, and his friend fell out through the open doorway, disappearing from sight with a bellow of terror. It happened so quickly – and at the same time so slowly – that it felt like it was a dream. A nightmare. And then he was jerked back to wakefulness by a sudden jolting weight that nearly pulled the rope from his hands. The rope. He was still holding the rope. And Carson had been holding the other end. Wrapped around the pillar, he clung onto the rope for dear life.

"Carson!" Sheppard yelled desperately.

Carson voice floated back up to them, panicked and echoing. "I'm down here! Rodney, don't let go!"

Rodney didn't want to let go. He really didn't want to let go and let Carson fall to his death. But Carson's weight on the rope felt like it was slowly pulling his arms out of his sockets, his shoulders screaming with the strain, the rope burning in his hands. Desperately, he tried to grip tighter.

There was a scraping sound as Sheppard clumsily pushed aside a crate blocking his path. Unable to even stand, let alone walk, Sheppard resorted to pulling himself across the floor, his splinted right leg dragging limply behind him, his face twisted in pain and determination. He got as far as the door and leaned his head out to look down into the chasm.

Rodney's arms were trembling, his palms burning.

"Rodney, don't let go!" Carson begged from far below.

Sheppard pulled his head back in and turned to look at him, his expression tense. "Rodney?" he asked.

Rodney knew what he was asking. He knew. But he couldn't. He couldn't do it. His hands, his arms, his shoulders, his back were all screaming and he couldn't hold on much longer. Carson was going to fall and it would be his fault. "John, I can't hold it!" he gasped.

"Yes, you can!" Sheppard encouraged.

Rodney's arms were being pulled out of his sockets. He let out a noise that sounded worryingly like a whimper. "No, no, I've never been good at holding heavy things," he panicked. "I had an old lady's grocery cart when I was in college; it's one of the reasons I didn't date as much as I could have!"

"Stay focussed!" Sheppard insisted. "You need to pull him up!"

If he hadn't been so terrified, Rodney would have laughed at the ridiculousness of that statement. He settled instead for a little pointed sarcasm. "Oh, really?! I was just getting used to the idea of not letting go here!" he snapped.

"He can't hang here forever, Rodney!" Sheppard warned.

"Well, help me!" Rodney begged. He couldn't do this on his own. He wasn't strong enough.

"Help you?" Sheppard grimaced. "I can't even stand up!" he gritted, his frustration tangible. "You're gonna have to pull him up on your own."

Oh god. He couldn't do this. But if he didn't, Carson was dead. Desperately, gritting his teeth, Rodney let go with one hand just long enough to let go of the pillar before grabbing hold again tightly. In the fraction of a second that he let go, Carson's weight dragged him further forward down the steep slope of the floor, towards the open door, and he heard Carson yelp as he dropped a few feet. Straining under the weight, Rodney set his stance and leaned his body weight back, using his own weight as a counter-balance. Slowly, painfully, he began to haul on the rope, inching Carson gradually back up towards the doorway.

"Hang on, wait a minute! Don't pull me up!" Carson's voice floated up from below.

Focused on his misery, on the strain of Carson's weight, on the desperate fear of losing his grip, of the rope slipping through his hands, Rodney looked up in disbelief. "What?! Why?!" he demanded.

"I see light!" Carson called, his voice sounding distant and echoey. Rodney panicked. Was Carson hurt? Was he slipping away from them even as Rodney tried desperately to pull him back to safety?

"No-no-no-no-no!" he yelled. "Don't go towards the light! You wanna stay in the land of the living!"

"No! Daylight!" Carson shouted back and Rodney felt an almost physical flush of relief. "There's a mineshaft down there. I see daylight!"

"Of course!" Sheppard realised, peering out the edge, as though he might be able to see the mineshafts himself. "Just like the ones on the other side of the mine. We should have thought of that."

Rodney's arms were burning, his legs starting to tremble. He didn't know how much longer he could keep this up. "Guys!" He yelled desperately. "What do you want me to do? What do I do?!"

"Lower me!" Carson shouted.

"What?! Lower you?!" First pull him up, then lower him… what did they think he was, superman?!

"It's about ten feet away," Carson explained. "I just need to swing over."

Okay, so there was a way out down there. Maybe. If the tunnels even lead out and not just deeper into the mine. "If the mineshaft is harder to get out of than this chamber..." he warned.

"We've already lost our exit, Rodney." Sheppard said, still peering down at Carson dangling below.

"What?" For a moment Rodney didn't understand, and then he looked up and saw that the hole in the ceiling was gone, covered over with solid-looking earth. With a sinking heart he realised that the room had tilted so far that the ceiling had shifted under the layer of earth above, effectively blocking off the hole. There was no way they were getting out that way. Which meant their only option was to go out the door, down into the chasm and up the mineshafts.

"I'll take my chances." Carson cried, panic tingeing his words. "Just lower me. I can't hold on forever!"

Hanging on grimly to the rope, Rodney muttered a heartfelt, "You and me both," and began to slowly, gingerly, inch his hands back up the rope, feeding it out and letting Carson gradually sink further into the chasm.

He'd played out a few feet of rope when Carson shouted, "Okay, good! Stop!"

Rodney hurt everywhere. He dug in, grimacing with the strain, and gritted tensely, "Gladly."

Sheppard was still sprawled on the floor, leaning his head out the doorway to watch. Rodney could tell when Carson began to swing; he could feel it through the rope, feel the pull and drag and twist, the scrape of the rope moving over the lip of the doorway, the added strain on his arms, his back, as Carson's weight swung first one way and then the other.

"You're doing great, Rodney." Sheppard called over his shoulder, splitting his attention between Carson swinging far below and Rodney straining to hold the rope. "You're doing just great."

"No," he disagreed despairingly. "'Great' is a beach with a fibreoptic hook-up. This is just complete agony."

He hung on desperately, leaning back as he tried to brace himself, biting his lip as he tried to keep a grip on the moving rope… and then, without warning, the weight was gone, the rope slackening abruptly in his hands, and he was falling. He toppled backwards and hit the ground with a thud.

"I made it!" Carson announced belatedly from somewhere below.

Exhausted, trembling and aching all over, Rodney struggled to a sitting position and groused, "You could have warned me!"

He felt like he'd aged about 30 years as he clambered tiredly to his feet. His entire body hurt and his arms and legs felt shaky and weak.

The huge space of the empty cavern made Carson's voice echo as he yelled excitedly. "This thing leads straight out! It's a nice steady slope! Come on, you guys, you've gotta get down here!"

Sheppard was pushing himself up to a sitting position once again, his leg dragging limply, and scooted across until he could lean heavily against the wall beside the door. He looked ill, his face pale and pinched and yet infused with a mulish determination that Rodney knew far too well. "You go," Sheppard gasped.

Rodney was more indignant than surprised. "What? No way!" he argued.

Sheppard was breathing heavily, the pain of moving even such a short distance exhausting him. "There's no way I'm gonna be able to lower myself," he explained simply.

"You won't have to," Rodney said immediately. "I'll lower you." Leaving Sheppard behind was not an option. They were _all_ getting out of here.

Sheppard pulled a face, looking almost pained as he waved a hand in Rodney's general direction. "Rodney… your hands," he said.

Surprised, Rodney looked down his hands. They were shaking and he couldn't make them still. His palms were bloody, angry rope burns marring the skin. He was vaguely aware that they hurt like hell but it was just one pain amongst many, one element of the all-encompassing ache that was his body. It didn't matter. He wasn't leaving Sheppard. If the only way for them to get out was for him to lower Sheppard out the door on a rope, then that's what he'd do.

He let his hands drop and raised his head defiantly. "Look, I'm not leaving you behind," he told Sheppard stubbornly. "Come on – I'll make you a seat."

Finding a sturdy enough piece of wood to use to make a seat wasn't difficult but tying it all together was; his battered hands complicated the process, feeling unfamiliar and clumsy, the fingers stiff and unresponsive as he tried to pull the knots tight. Sheppard insisted on helping, pointing out that his leg was broken, not his arms. He took the wood and rope off Rodney, placing it in his lap, and with a sympathetic grimace, commanded Rodney to at least wrap the angry burns across his palms.

There were some scraps of cloth left over from building Rodney's improvised canon; they were old and grimy and not remotely hygienic and Rodney quailed a little at the thought. But he didn't have much choice; he needed to be able to be able to lower Sheppard far enough down for him to reach the mineshaft and to do that he needed to be able to use his hands. Unsanitary or not, the rags were the only thing he had to protect his injured hands from the rough surface of the rope. Right now infection was the least of his worries.

He tore the cloth into long strips and began wrapping a wide strip gingerly around one palm, wincing as the fabric pressed against raw flesh. He was struggling to knot the cloth in place, fumbling with stiff fingers and teeth, when Sheppard interrupted him.

"Rodney."

He looked up to find that Sheppard had finished the rudimentary seat already, the rope tied firmly around the centre of the length of wood. Sheppard beckoned him over and gestured for him to hold out his half-bandaged hand.

"Broken leg, Rodney. Arms work fine," he commented dryly, pulling the bandage tight and tying off the ends firmly. For a moment, it was nice to let someone else take charge and Rodney almost meekly let Sheppard wrap his other hand, knotting the rags firmly into place. And then the brief respite was over; the seat was ready, Rodney's hands were bandaged as best they were able, and it was time to get the hell out of here.

Getting Sheppard onto the seat and ready to be lowered was a painful process – literally, for Sheppard. He used his arms to scoot himself closer to the open doorway, his face pale and pinched as his injured leg dragged across the floor. Having chance to prepare this time, Rodney looped the rope around the pillar, giving himself at least a basic pulley system so that all the weight wasn't transferring straight to his back and arms. He'd also thought about the practicalities of getting Sheppard across to the mineshaft once he was low enough – he wasn't going to be able to swing himself with the agility that Carson had so Rodney had come up with a simple solution; the seat had been tied so that an extra length of rope hung below the piece of wood, rope that Sheppard now coiled up and slung over one shoulder. Once he was low enough, he could throw the rope to Carson and Carson could just reel him in.

Sheppard rolled awkwardly from side to side as he slipped the piece of wood between his legs and settled it under his ass. He was breathing heavily by the time he sat up and gave Rodney a grimly determined nod. Rodney braced himself, biting his lip at a flush of hot pain as he closed his battered hands around the rope and took up the slack. He saw a flash of an answering grimace on Sheppard's face as he swung his legs around, using his hands to lift and move his right leg as carefully as possible, and shuffled forward until he was perched on the lip of the drop, his legs dangling over the edge. Even though he knew this should work, even though he'd checked and double-checked everything, Rodney still felt a cold tremor of fear up his spine. For the next few moments, Sheppard's life was going to be literally in Rodney's hands.

Getting out the door was the worst part. Sheppard tried to transition his weight from the floor to the rope as smoothly as possible, trying to twist his body around and bear some of his weight on his arms as he slipped himself over the edge but it was awkward and, despite Rodney being braced, Sheppard's sudden weight on the rope pulled him a staggering step forward before he managed to tighten his grip on the rope. Sheppard yelped, tipped off balance by the sudden drop, and Rodney's heart leapt into his throat as he felt the rope twist and swing wildly.

"Sheppard?" he yelled.

"Here…" Sheppard's voice was raw and pain-filled but it eased the knot of tension in Rodney's stomach, just a little bit. He twisted and leaned over to his right a little and found that he could just see the top of Sheppard's messy mop of hair over the lip of the doorframe.

"You okay?" he fretted.

Sheppard's head was bowed, leaning into the taut rope as he swung cumbersomely just below the door. "I'm good," he called up, after a moment. "Start lowering…"

Rodney's hands were already killing him, his tight grip pressing the rope painfully against his raw flesh, even through the cloth wrapping. Gritting his teeth, he began to slowly feed the rope through his hands, a whimper escaping him as the movement brought further pain.

An answering groan floated up from the echoing cavern and he guessed that this ride was no fun for Sheppard either. He kept passing the rope from hand to hand, leaning further backwards to try and counterbalance the weight, feeling the strain in his shoulders and arms. His jaw was starting to ache from being clenched with effort, his teeth gritted together. He groaned as he felt the muscles in his back tremble and burn. The rope slipped a little and he clamped his hands hard around it, nearly crying out with the pain. Somewhere down below, Sheppard gave a pained grunt. It was hard to feed the rope smoothly and every jerky, incremental descent must be jarring Sheppard's broken leg, Rodney realised.

After about a millennia or so, Sheppard finally called up, his voice rough and a little shaky, "Okay, that's good! Stop!"

"Stopping!" Rodney called back with relief. Now came the fun part. Sheppard would have to throw the second length of rope over the Carson. And Carson would have to catch it. Despite the broken leg thing and being dangling over a chasm on a twisting rope seat, Rodney had no concerns over Sheppard's ability to throw the rope accurately. He wasn't quite so confident in Carson's ability to catch said rope. He only hoped it didn't take them too many tries. His hands were on fire.

There was a shout from below. Carson yelling, "Okay!"

Then he felt the rope move in his hands as Carson obviously began to pull Sheppard over towards the mineshaft entrance. After a moment, Carson shouted again. "Almost there! Just give me a few more feet of slack!"

Carefully, painfully, Rodney fed out a couple more feet of rope.

For a moment or two there was silence and then Carson yelled, "Okay, I've got him!"

Rodney sagged with relief, his breath escaping in a gasp of exhaustion as he let the rope drop.

"You're up, McKay!" Carson shouted from far below.

Rodney was frozen to the spot, leaning exhaustedly forward, his body angled to compensate for the steep tilt of the floor, and the last thing he felt like doing right now was moving. He wasn't even sure he _could_ move; every muscle in his body ached and he didn't think he'd ever felt this tired.

"Oh great! Great!" he called back weakly, fatigue robbing his sarcasm of some of its bite. "You know, I was just thinking what would be awesome would be more physical exertion!" He flapped a hand tiredly and even that hurt.

He just needed a moment to catch his breath, that was all. Just a moment.

"Rodney?"

"Yeah, yeah. Coming," he mumbled. And pushed himself reluctantly into motion.

Climbing down the dangling, swaying rope was a new level of hell. He'd tied the end off as securely as he could to the metal pillar and had lowered himself to sit in the open doorway, legs dangling out over space, trying his hardest not to look down at, not to even _think_ about, the immense drop below him. It had taken all his courage to wrap his legs around the rope, grab on tight with his aching hands, and slip his weight over the lip of the doorway and out into nothingness. The rope had swung wildly as he put his full weight on it, making him close his eyes and cling to it in terror.

"Come on, Rodney! You're doing fine!" Carson's encouragement from what seemed impossibly far below had gotten him to open his eyes and slowly, cautiously, begin to inch his way down the knotted rope. Carson continued to shout out encouragement from below as Rodney swung around on the rope. He was so tired, so damn tired, and every time he shifted his hands on the rope it brought a fresh sting of pain. It seemed to take an age until his feet bumped against the wooden crossbar and he fumbled it around for a moment until he had one foot on either side of it and could take some of the weight off his feet.

The rope was twisting slowly, spinning him around as he stood on the makeshift seat. Over to his right he could see Carson hovering in the opening of the mineshaft, a welcoming grin on his face. Behind him, Sheppard lay slumped against the wall further up the tunnel. He was half hidden in shadows and Rodney couldn't see enough to tell what his condition was, but he could see that he was moving a little so that had to be a good sign. All he had to do now was get over to the mineshaft himself. He was just so damned tired though and it seemed so much effort. More effort than he had left in him.

"Come on," Carson called out encouragingly. "Now start swinging."

Clinging to the rope, spinning gently in space, Rodney felt like every single muscle in his body was shaking with fatigue.

"Rodney, you have to use your body and start swinging," Carson pushed. "Come on, you're so close."

Just hanging on the rope was killing him. The thought of having to move… "No, I've given everything I've got to get this far," Rodney argued.

"So that's it, then? You're quitting? You're just gonna die there on the rope?"

Rodney frowned at Carson's tone, even as he grimaced in discomfort. "No," he argued, a little defensively. "No, I'm just taking a little rest."

Just a little rest to get his strength back. Frankly, he was amazed he'd made it this far. Playing the action hero was Sheppard's job, not his. Somehow, Sheppard always managed to make it look easy but Rodney knew for a fact that it was anything but. How did he get into these situations anyway? He'd come to the Pegasus galaxy expecting to sit in a lab and make incredible scientific discoveries that would change the course of human history. And somehow he'd found himself travelling to alien worlds, shooting guns, escaping from deadly situations and having crazy adventures like some insane Indiana Jones-wannabe. And it really rather took the fun out of it to find out that the stuff that looked so exciting and thrilling on the movie screen always turned out to be nothing but painful and terrifying in real life.

Trying to gather the strength to even think about moving, Rodney mused out loud, just a little plaintively, "You know, I might ... be like a real-life action star, kinda…"

"What?" Carson asked, clearly nonplussed.

"You know: shooting guns, running around, saving people," Rodney explained. He tried to shift his position a little and the resulting pain made him scrunch his eyes closed. He carried on talking, trying to distract himself. "You think I'd be... you think this'd be easy for me now. You think I'd be, like, super-buff by now."

"Well, come on, Schwarzenegger," Carson teased, "start swinging."

"Just a second more," Rodney hedged, closing his eyes. He just needed to get his strength back. Just one last push, and he'd be…

An ominous creaking sound came from above, echoing loudly in the cavern, and Rodney's eyes shot open and turned upwards, adrenalin flooding through him.

"Okay. Break's over!" he gabbled. Fear leant him strength and he grit his teeth as he leant backwards, letting the off-centre distribution of his weight push the rope forwards. Using his arms to tilt his weight backwards and back up again was agony but the rope was starting to swing in a larger and larger arc, away from the mineshaft and then closer, away and then a little bit closer again. Carson was reaching out for him but he wasn't quite close enough. Another swing. Almost there. Another swing and this time Carson's hand closed around his arm and pulled him closer.

He'd almost got his feet onto solid ground when suddenly the rope snapped and he was dropped unceremoniously into the mineshaft, his momentum thankfully carrying him forwards to sprawl on the ground, knocking Carson off his feet as the severed rope whipcracked past the mineshaft entrance and disappeared. He scrabbled hurriedly back from the edge of the shaft, a thrill of fear running through him at his narrow escape.

"That was close!" he gasped.

Just a second later soil and chunks of rock began to rain past the mineshaft opening and Rodney watched in awe as the entire room, the metal box they had just spent the last few hours trapped in, plunged past them, it's cumbersome mass completely obscuring the view of the cavern for a second or two, before hitting the cavern floor with a distant and grinding crash.

"Great!" he corrected himself with feeling. "_That_ was close!"

Carson nodded wordlessly, a reassuring hand on Rodney's shoulder, before clambering to his feet, crouching in the low-ceilinged tunnel.

"Okay. C'mon." He threw a look over his shoulder and told Rodney, "You need to help me."

Rodney struggled to his feet, feeling roughly 190 years old, and shakily followed Carson up the tunnel to where Sheppard lay half-leaning against the wall. He looked ill, his face pale and drawn under a coating of dirt. It quickly became apparent that the only way to get Sheppard out of the low-ceilinged tunnel would be for Carson and Rodney to carry him. There was no way he could stand unaided and the tunnel was too cramped for them to try and support him between them. Rodney grimaced; he felt like he could barely carry his own weight right now, let alone Sheppard's, and no matter how careful they were, this was going to be no picnic for Sheppard.

"Okay," Carson murmured. "One, two, three!"

Moving as one, Carson and Rodney lifted, Rodney's hands under Sheppard's armpits, Carson cradling his legs as gently as possible. Sheppard gave a yelp and went white as a sheet.

"Okay, carefully now," Carson advised. "But as quickly as we can, please. Let's get this bit over and done with." Rodney began to shuffle backwards up the incline of the tunnel slope, Carson following, his arms wrapped around Sheppard's knees. It was cramped and uncomfortable, the low ceiling forcing Rodney to bend forward over Sheppard as he felt his way carefully with his feet, unable to see where he was going. Sheppard was tight-lipped and sweating, obviously in great pain. Once or twice Rodney fumbled his steps and Sheppard groaned helplessly as Rodney and Carson struggled to hold him steady.

Finally, they emerged from the mineshaft into a grassy field not unlike the one that had unceremoniously dumped Rodney into the Genii mining facility in the first place. Rodney had never been so pleased to see the sun and the pale blue sky above. He helped Carson lay Sheppard gently down in the grass and then slowly, painfully, and deliberately lowered himself to the ground and flopped exhaustedly onto his back with a hearty sigh. He was still lying there, not moving and not planning to ever move again if he had his way, when Carson's face loomed into view overhead.

"The Colonel's stable enough for now," Carson stated, "but I really need to get him back to Atlantis and under a scanner."

Rodney groaned despairingly. Depending on where exactly they'd come out, the gate was at least a 20 minute walk away. 20 minutes walk for someone whose every muscle didn't ache and who wasn't carrying an injured team mate. There was no way Sheppard could walk and the mere thought of them having to carry him that far…

"I need you to keep an eye on John," Carson was explaining. "I'm going to head back to the gate and call for a jumper."

Rodney breathed a sigh of relief as Carson continued, "I don't want to move him more than I have to and from the look of your hands I don't want you doing any more lifting."

Rodney struggled reluctantly to a sitting position as Carson straightened and stepped back. Sheppard was lying where they'd set him down, white-faced and breathless, his head turned to watch as Carson set off with a promised, "I'll be back shortly with a jumper and a medical team." He gave a brief wave and turned away.

"Hey," Rodney mumbled tiredly, grimacing as he forced aching muscles to scootch him closer to Sheppard.

"Hey," Sheppard agreed roughly. He lifted his head for a moment, his face wrinkling with the effort, to glance down at his splinted leg, now resting on Carson's wadded-up uniform jacket, before flopping back with a sigh.

Rodney gave his own sigh as he let himself flop back into the grass again.

The sunlight was warm and the sky was a pale shade of blue, crisscrossed by streaks and dots of cloud here and there. After hours trapped underground in a dark and dingy – and unstable – metal box, it was one of the loveliest sights he'd ever seen.

He was still gazing up at it when the jumper flew smoothly overhead and circled round to set down in the field.

* * *

Rodney's hands were the only bit of him that didn't ache. They'd been cleaned and slathered in ointment – and boy had they'd looked nasty once the makeshift bandages had been (painfully) peeled off and the dirt cleaned away! – and a medic was finishing up wrapping a dressing around his right hand, his left already looking like it was wrapped in a white fingerless glove. Carson, his hands also bandaged, was hovering nearby, reading reports that a lackey was having to hold up for him on a datapad. Rodney sighed, looking at his bandaged hands; he somehow doubted any of his staff would be willing to meekly hold reports up for him and be his surrogate hands while his injuries healed. Damn, this was going to be annoying…

"Looks good. Okay, thank you." Carson dismissed the lackey and Rodney caught his attention.

"How's Sheppard?" he asked.

Carson leaned against the exam bed. "He's gonna be okay," he smiled. "It's a clean break. Still, they're re-setting it and putting him into a cast, which means he's gonna be on crutches for a few weeks or so, but..." He tailed off as the medic neatly tied off the final piece of dressing and gathered up his supplies.

"Thank you," Carson smiled, dismissing the medic with a nod, before coming back to the topic. "He's gonna be fine," he repeated. He cast as glance at Rodney's neatly-wrapped hands. "How're you doing?"

Rodney looked consideringly at his hands and told Carson, "I'd like to take a bath in whatever magical ointment they just put on my hands, 'cause they're the only thing that doesn't hurt." A sudden thought occurred to him. "It's not gonna scar, is it?"

Carson just smiled, straightening up. "Chicks dig scars," he teased with a grin.

"Not the chicks I dig," Rodney muttered. Girls who liked scars liked macho heroes like Sheppard, not science geeks like him.

"You're gonna be fine," Carson relented.

Not entirely convinced, Rodney nodded. He was feeling more tired by the minute, the adrenalin of the last few hours of stress and fear deserting him.

"Thanks, by the way," Carson added, his expression turning serious.

For a moment Rodney was lost. "For what?"

"You saved my life," Carson pointed out. "If you'd let go..."

Rodney smiled a little. He had hadn't he? Maybe he was a bit of a hero after all. "You're welcome," he said magnanimously, before sliding gingerly off the exam bed, a task that was easier said than done with his hands all bandaged up.

"Right, well," he announced, "I'm going back to my room, curling up in the foetal position and sleeping for the next three days."

"Okay," Carson agreed, turning towards his office. "You can bring me the bottle of whiskey later," he added casually as he walked away.

"Hmm? What?" Rodney was almost at the door before his brain finished processing that statement.

"You owe me a bottle of single malt, Rodney," Carson stood in the doorway to his office and grinned. "For the trick I showed you."

"What?!"

"You said if it worked you'd buy me a bottle of single malt," Carson pointed out, his tone reasonable.

"Well, it didn't work, did it?" Rodney argued irritably. "It gave way and Sheppard broke his leg!

"The bridge worked." Carson's expression was deliberately innocent. "It's not my fault if the materials used were sub-standard…"

"Sub-_standard_?!" For a brief, irrational moment Rodney considered that maybe he should have let go of that rope and let Carson fall. "It was all we had to work with! How is that my fault?!"

"A promise is a promise, Rodney." Carson's innocent smile held for a moment longer before creasing into a smirk. The thought that he should have just let go of that rope crossed Rodney's mind again as he sagged with relief. Carson had been teasing him again.

"Come on," Carson beckoned him into the office. "What say we open that bottle of single malt right now?"

"What?" It seemed Rodney's brain had shut down for that day. He was pretty sure he did actually have more words in his vocabulary than what. "What single malt?" Well, that was a start.

He followed on aching legs as Carson went to his desk and pulled up a second chair, waving Rodney into it. As Rodney semi-collapsed into the seat, Carson unlocked a small drugs cabinet and withdrew a full bottle of something called Dalwhinnie and a couple of glasses. "I've been saving this," Carson commented as he peeled the seal from the bottle and gently worked the cork free.

"So what's the occasion?" Rodney watched numbly as Carson poured a generous measure of light golden liquid into each glass.

"Being alive." Carson handed him a glass with a smile.

Rodney thought about that. He ached all over, his hands were torn up and Sheppard had a broken leg and was going to be on crutches for weeks. But they were all still alive.

He raised his glass and clinked it against Carson's. He could drink to that, he decided.

* * *

_Fin._


End file.
